A Song of the High Hills is a work for tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

, soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

, chorus

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

 and orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

 by Frederick Delius

Frederick Delius

Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...

. Composed in 1911, it was first performed under the direction of Albert Coates

Albert Coates (musician)

Albert Coates was an English conductor and composer. Born in Saint Petersburg where his English father was a successful businessman, he studied in Russia, England and Germany, before beginning his career as a conductor in a series of German opera houses...

, at the Queen's Hall

Queen's Hall

The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 on February 26, 1920. That was a concert of the Royal Philharmonic Society

Royal Philharmonic Society

The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...

 with soloists Maud Willby and Norman Stone, with the newly formed Philharmonic Choir under the direction of its founder Charles Kennedy Scott

Charles Kennedy Scott

Charles Kennedy Scott was an English organist and choral conductor who played an important part in developing the performance of choral and polyphonic music in England, especially of early and modern English music.-Training:Educated at Southampton Grammar School, he entered the Brussels...

 making its first public appearance. The piece is symphonic, and uses the chorus mainly as a wordless background. Delius explained that

I have tried to express the joy and rapture felt in the High Mountains and to depict the lonely melancholy of the highest altitudes of the wide expanses. The vocal parts typify Man in Nature.

Sir Thomas Beecham described this as one of Delius's major works,('on an heroic scale, and the inspiration is on an exalted level throughout') and a transitional work, in which Delius moved away from the human sensibilities described in such works as Sea Drift

Sea Drift (Delius)

Sea Drift is among the larger-scale musical works by the composer Frederick Delius. Completed in 1903-1904 and first performed in 1906, it is a setting for baritone, chorus and orchestra of words by Walt Whitman.- The poem adaptation :...

towards a 'certain austerity of manner', attaining 'a magical sequence of sounds and echoes, both vocal and instrumental, all culminating in a great outburst of tone that seems to flood the entire landscape.' '...we have hitherto unfamiliar elements of austerity and impersonality, as if the composer had grown tired of interpreting the joys and sorrows of human beings and had turned to the contemplation of nature only.'

Beecham recorded the work on 22 November 1946 with Freda Hart (soprano) and Leslie Jones (tenor), the Luton Choral Society and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a form which reached publication on 78 and 33 rpm records.

Sources

• T. Beecham, Frederick Delius (New Edition, with discography), (Severn House 1975).
• R. Elkin, Queen's Hall, 1893-1941 (Rider & Co., London 1944).
• R. Elkin, Royal Philharmonic - The Annals of the Royal Philharmonic Society (Rider & Co., London 1946).
• David Ewen, Encyclopedia of Concert Music. New York; Hill and Wang, 1959.